the clause conveys an idea of purpose in the maiden’s pausing as well as an idea of manner. This clause may be expanded to read as she would pause if again she thought to catch that distant strain, where the clause of manner contains a clause of condition.
A clause introduced by as though cannot be so expanded. “I will invest your money as though it were my own,” cannot be made to read—“I will invest your money as I would invest it though it were my own.” This is proof that the clause has been thought of only as a clause of manner, and as though as only one connective.
Notice that when a modal clause is introduced by as if or as though, the action or state in the clause is represented not as real but only as assumed.
Position of the Modal Clause.—The usual position of a clause of manner is after the predicate it modifies, but sometimes it precedes the principal proposition and is made emphatic by the adverb just, even, or precisely, used as a clause modifier; thus, “Just as we estimate the importance of a river—not by its length nor by its breadth, but by the amount of water it contributes to the ocean—so we estimate the size of a city by the number of people it contains.”
When the clause is long and comes first, the principal proposition is often introduced by so, a correlative of as in the clause; as in the example above.
Exercise 11
Select the adverbial clauses of manner, telling what each clause modifies, and its connective.
1. These poems differ from others as attar of roses differs from ordinary rose-water.—Macaulay.
2. The beggars and the wretcheder poor keep themselves warm, I think, by sultry recollections of summer, as Don Quixote proposed to subsist upon savory remembrances, during one of his periods of fast.—Howells.
3. The stars all seemed brighter than usual, as if the wind blew them up like burning coals.—Burroughs.